Month: May 2016

Back when I started working for CBR, I covered Image Comics. It was a wild time when new creators were rolling in and producing these great creator-owned books. A lot of them have gone on to work at Marvel where I now interview them for that company’s website. I’ve since switched beats and now cover BOOM! Studios and IDW so I’ve lost touch with some of the books that everyone’s talking about and digging like Wayward and Descender. Continue reading Image Trade Post: Wayward & Descender

While reading the intro to my copy of Dolores Claiborne, I saw that Gerald’s Game acts as a kind of companion novel. So, being a bit of a completest and possibly a crazy person, I picked up a copy along with Bag Of Bones and Green Mile on eBay.

I’ve got to say, compared to all of the Stephen King books I’ve listened to or read since getting on this kick starting with Joyland, Game proved to be the hardest one to get through. I might not have been the biggest fan of The Gunslinger, but at 250-ish pages, I was still able to knock it out pretty quickly. The same could not be said for Gerald’s Game, but I was very happy I stuck with it. Continue reading Riding With The King: Gerald’s Game (1992)

Brian K. Vaughan’s one of those comic writers who might not hit a grand slam every time, but he sure seems to swing for the fences. Saga, Runaways and Y: The Last Man are amazing pieces of long-form comic book storytelling. I’m not the biggest fan of how Ex Machina came to a close and Pride of Baghdad isn’t my thing, but the way this guy attacks his ideas and collaborates with his artists just blows me away every time even if the story isn’t fully up my alley.

So, of course I was interested in checking out The Private Eye, a pay-what-you-want, digital-first series he created with Doctor Strange: The Oath artist Marcos Martin for Panel Syndicate, the company they also started. I actually ready the first issue or two a few y ears back when I had the pleasure of interviewing BKV for CBR, but fell off a bit. When the collection, printed by Image, appeared on the library website, it was an easy request. Continue reading Trade Post: The Private Eye

Once again I find myself wildly enjoying a film suggested by the fine folks who host the Killer POV podcast which has recently ended with Shock Waves rising in its place. I love when I find hosts who I not only enjoy, but whose opinions gel with my own, so I was really glad to hear they were just shuffling into a different set-up and not fully calling it quits. I don’t know how much stock I put into capital C criticism, but I do know that I like finding people whose opinions align with mine. That’s how I got to watching Last Shift which is co-written and directed Anthony DiBlasi. Continue reading Halloween Scene: Last Shift (2014)

Avengers Arena was one of those books that I heard about because it raised the ire of the internet (or at least the part where people who can’t accept that comic characters are pretend) because it killed off some beloved younger characters from the Marvel U. When I saw all three volumes available on the library system, I requested all three and dove right in.

The idea here is that the book, written by Dennis Hopeless and mostly drawn by Kev Walker, revolves around a mysteriously powered-up Arcade brings 16 young heroes to Murder World and tells them they have 30 days before they can leave. At that point, only one can exit, so they should probably kill each other. As it happens, this is something that a great deal of the characters from Avengers Academy, Runaways and other books don’t have a big problem with the idea. Continue reading Avengers Arena Trade Post: All Three Volumes

Last week I found myself in the enviable position of being in the house alone during the day with a bunch of work to do on my laptop and the television unoccupied by children demanding to watch the same two episodes of Bubble Guppies on repeat. So, like anyone who hasn’t been able to stay up past 11 on a week night in recent memory, I decided to watch three movies in a row all on Amazon Prime! Continue reading Halloween Scene Triple Feature: Shivers, After Midnight & Billy Club